Mystery Behind Art History’s Most Scandalous Painting Resolved
Cesar Lucas Abreu/Cover/Getty ImagesThe Origin of the World by Gustave Coubert was painted in 1866.
A French historian claims that he has inadvertently uncovered one of the most scandalous mysteries in the art history community — the identity of the nude model who posed for Gustave Courbet’s 1866 painting The Origin of the World.
The painting, which features a close-up rendering of female genitalia has been called “art’s most scandalous vagina.” The model’s face isn’t exhibited in the painting and only depicts the female model from the chest down. A painting as intimate as this was naturally quite shocking for the 19th-century public.
The model’s identity has been a mystery since the painting’s inception, leaving art historians to debate the matter since.
It’s been long believed that the woman’s identity belonged to Courbet’s lover, the Irish model Joanna Hiffernan. There were speculations here though, as Hiffernan was known to have fiery red curls and the genitalia featured in Courbet’s work is regaled with dark pubic hair instead.
This was until French historian Claude Schopp uncovered evidence which actually points to a different woman entirely — the Parisian ballet dancer Constance Queniaux.
SEBASTIEN BOZON/AFP/Getty ImagesGustave Courbet’s The origin of the world officially has a face to match its body.
Schopp discovered a connection between Courbet’s model’s identity and communications between Alexandre Dumas and his friend George Sand while reading through copies of Dumas’s letters for a book.
Queniaux was a mistress of the Ottoman diplomat Halil Şerif Pasha when the picture was painted in 1866, and it is now believed that Halil himself actually commissioned the painting for his own personal collection.
These facts indicated to Schopp that Queniaux was the face behind the infamous erotic portrait, and not Courbet’s lover — a discovery that he happened upon completely by coincidence.
“This testimony from the time leads me to believe with 99 percent certainty that Courbet’s model was Constance Queniaux,” Aubenas reported of the feat in art history news.
